


The Division Bell

by magnetrose



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: All the chapter titles are Pink Floyd song titles, Ben gets his redemption, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff, Lightsabers, Not a prediction fic, Post-TLJ, Rey gets a double sided lightsaber, Reylo - Freeform, Slow Burn, There's more people like Snoke, implied smut later on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-03-19 05:25:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13697772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnetrose/pseuds/magnetrose
Summary: Post-TLJ.Ben Solo: Being Supreme Leader wasn't meant to be. With little time to prepare he is betrayed by Hux and cast out of the First Order with a price on his head. Rey: She's still struggling to find her place in this fight, but the quest to build a new lightsaber from the remnants of Luke's old one is a start. Their fates are ultimately tied together, and together they will have to find their way in the galaxy.





	1. A New Machine

**Author's Note:**

> PREFACE: I am not new to Star Wars, but I am new to the Reylo shipping. When TFA came out I didn’t really latch onto a pairing, and of course now the TLJ is out I have seen what I should have seen AGES ago. I think I honestly didn’t believe that Reylo would ever be a thing because the dynamics of characters like that is MY JAM and so rarely happens when I want it to! So, that being said, I have never written a Star Wars fic. At least not one that ever left my brain (re: obsessed at a child/teen but didn’t know the wonders of fanfic). So if I make inconsistencies with the canon (Legacy or otherwise), I apologize, also if I rehash stuff that’s been done a billion times I’m sorry but as of today I’ve read like five reylo fics! I’ve been trying to read up on the back info on the Star Wars Wikia so bear with me!
> 
> Updates might be sparse (busy working adult, working on original fic stuff) but I’ve got an ending already in mind, so I should be able to push through until the end. Not sure how long it’s going to end up being but I promise to do my best and bring a good story no matter what.

**Chapter 1**

**A New Machine**

 

**It starts with a death.**

High above the Endor moon a battle of blades and wills rages. The Emperor laughs as his apprentice attempts to take down his only son. 

Snoke stares out from an antechamber, he had visited the Emperor to view the new battle station. The Emperor had been trying to create a partnership with the Attendants and he was here to see if such a partnership would be fruitful. He and the guards that attended to the Emperor the had been sent away prior to the arrival of Vader and Skywalker but Snoke had stayed just out of sight. The Emperor always held his most important apprentice up on a pedestal and he wanted to see this dark force user. 

Then he sees the betrayal of the Emperor. Vader was indeed powerful, but he was also weak. He had been built poorly. Snoke looks for an escape, he can sense the movements of the force and sees this battle station is on the verge of destruction. Snoke steals out the back and flies away in an emergency ship that only a select few of Palpatine’s servants knew about he also brings with him the few members of the Emperor’s small ruling council. Inside the ship is everything needed to build the Empire back from whatever vestiges the rebels leave behind.\

Snoke manages to rally the support structure and secure a dozen of the credit accounts of the Empire before the New Republic freezes everything. In the darkness of of a quiet corner of the the galaxy he begins to rebuild what the Emperor squandered. The Emperor got his wish, the Attendants would create a partnership with the Empire, but it would be under Snoke’s command, and not a weak human like the Emperor. 

If the Emperor had taken the time to see that he had built his Empire on weak foundations then maybe he wouldn’t have died, wouldn’t have made the mistake of letting Vader get the best of him. But now, Supreme Leader Snoke, began the search for his own apprentice, someone to help him secure his place in this faulty part of the galaxy and give the Attendants their rightful place of rule. 

As the years pass he keeps an ear close to the ground and hears that the leader of the New Republic is not only an untrained force user, but the twin of Luke Skywalker and daughter of Vader. He thinks and plans at first to go after her, maybe he can turn her to his way, but when he reaches out across the chasm of space he finds a steel trap mind and one that would not be easily molded. It might bear fruit in the end but it would take too long. 

He’s almost ready to give up on that option when he sees something even better. Leia Organa is with child. He knows then. He knows exactly what he needs to do. 

  
  


**Ben is born into a happy family.** As a newborn he is all smiles and strong fingers. His parents feel complete. He was wanted. He was given everything he needed. His family loved him.

_ Ben is an infant _ . Some nights he wakes his parents up, they aren’t sure what is happening, but they are nightmares that scare him awake. 

_ Ben is four years old. _ They are having dinner when he tells his parents about his new friend Snowman. They smile and chuckle thinking it’s a cute name for one of his friends. But how could they know the truth?

_ Ben is six years old.  _ He is sitting in the office of the school administrator. Ben is stoic except for the hot tears streaming down his face. He had just set fire to the robes of a boy who had been bullying him about his ears. When they ask why he did it, he tells them his friend Snowman told him to do it. 

The school administrator is as baffled as his parents. There is no such person or child at the school.

That’s when Han and Leia start to worry.

_ Ben is ten years old. _ He fitfully sleeps most nights, there are always bad dreams, and dark whispers on the other side of sleep. That night something else wakes him: the sound of a baby crying. 

He gets up and not hearing it again steps out into the hallway. His parents are sitting in the kitchen talking in low voices, but he can tell it’s not a happy conversation. They have been arguing more frequently and even though they say it isn’t his fault, the voice at the back of his mind tells him otherwise. He’s not sure who to believe.

He doesn’t see a baby anywhere and almost turns to go back to bed when the voices of his parents rise slightly. He tucks himself behind a couch in the living room and listens to them.

“...going away...”

“...again?”

“...for a few weeks...”

“...you promised Ben...”

Ben frowns and he picks at the bits of Chewie’s hair from the back of the couch. It always seemed to be on everything. His dad was leaving again. His mom always got really stressed out before he left and sometimes after he left too. 

_ It’s because he doesn’t love you.  _ Snowman says. Ben ignores the voice at the back of his mind. He was already thinking it, but the reminder didn’t help. 

His parents are getting louder and he tries to hunch into a ball to shut it and Snowman out but they are both getting louder. 

_ It’s only a matter of time. They both really hate you. They’ll send you away.  _ Snowman says sadly.

“No.” Ben mutters. 

“What happened to the job here?!” Mom is saying.

“He backed out of the deal!” Dad replies.

“You mean you sabotaged it!”

“What? No!”

Louder and louder.  _ They can’t be free because of you!  _ Snowman shouts.

Ben’s face is covered in tears of fear and rage he stands up and screams. The furniture around him explodes away, pictures on the wall crack, the light in the hallway fractures and begins to hiss. 

Finally all three of the voices are quiet. His parents are staring at him and all he sees in their faces is fear. 

  
  


**Rey is born into an unhappy family.** Her mother was as kind as she could be, but she didn’t want to be saddled with a child. It was hard enough to get through a day without a child to care for. Her father would rather do his few trading jobs during the day and come home and drink after. Neither of them wanted a child. Everything was a trade, come and go, ebb and flow. And while they discussed the possibility of giving her up for adoption, they knew no one would pay a fair price for a newborn, not when it took more work to feed and care for her than it was worth.

The father tried to find some hopeless rich spinster to buy the child but not a lot of people were willing to deal with dirty junk traders like them. 

_ Rey is two years old. _ She’s been inconsolable all day. Something is upsetting her and the father and mother can’t figure out what’s wrong. They have been stranded on dirty sweaty Jakku for three months. Everyone’s nerves are already frayed and the broken ship isn’t getting fixed.  

**_Ben is twelve._ ** The day that Snowman--no, Snoke--had predicted was here. His parents were sending him away with Uncle Luke. He tries to hide his frustration and anger but Snoke is always at the back of his mind telling him to put that anger to use so he has a hard time keeping the resentment from showing on his face.

His father has never been very good about emotions. But Ben knows when he’s trying. Dad hands him a little wooden box. “Your mom says you’ve been getting into calligraphy, I got this for you from a merchant on Corsica.”

Ben takes the box and holds it like a baby. It will become one of his most cherished possessions. But it doesn’t take the sting away from being sent away.

**_Rey is five years old._ ** She is having a bad day. Most of her days are good, she’s generally a happy child, full of light and life, she’s even become the joy of her mother’s life in some respects. 

But today she is feeling like the world is ending. She keeps hitting things and acting out.

“I’ve had enough,” the father says. “Plutt has agreed to take her in exchange for a graphene chamber and 1000 credits.”

“Oh,” the mother says. She feels conflicted about it, but her nerves are shot and she really wants a drink. 

They drop her off with Plutt and take the money. Rey doesn’t realize they are leaving her until she sees them head for the ship but the man named Unkar Plutt is holding her arm. They don’t look back. Rey cries for them to come back. She wonders what she did wrong. The day just never got better. 

**_Ben is fifteen years old._** He has woken up to his Uncle holding a lightsaber over him. 

_ Do it. You knew this day would come. _ Snoke says to him.

He opens himself up to the rage, he finally lets his anger lead the way. His own uncle was thinking about killing him. Bad enough that his parents had sent him off to this godforsaken planet with a dozen people he didn’t know. He hated it, he hates his uncle. He destroys everything around, the little hut that each of the students got crumbles around him and buries Skywalker. 

The other students come out to see what happened. 

“Luke Skywalker just attempted to kill me! We are not safe here. Come with me.”

Some of them try to argue with him. Some try to figure out what happened. Some try to say that Ben is the one at fault. Those are the first to die. Blinded by rage he kills one by one the other students who didn’t want to come with, and with the handful of others he steals a ship and flies into the waiting grasp of Supreme Leader Snoke. 

As he kneels at Snoke’s feet, the ancient creature of a man stands tall. “Kill Ben Solo. He means nothing and is nothing anymore, but now with me you can mean everything. That is a mask given to you to hide who you truly are. I give you the name… Kylo Ren. Become who you are supposed to be. I will make you strong Ren, follow me and we will hold this galaxy together.”

...


	2. Round and Round

  **Chapter 2**

**Round and Round**

As embers fall like rain, Rey opens her eyes. There's a painful ringing in her ears, lines of the room around her swim in all directions, and she can't seem to focus. She pushes herself up to sit and slowly the room settles into place.  _He_  is lying on the ground just couple hundred feet away. The power of a lightsaber was no joke. It had thrown them clear across Snoke's chamber. The shattered saber lie in between them, like a broken promise. She feels her breath catch in her chest, the tears want to come again, but she takes in a deep intake of air and pushes the exhaustion, the sadness, the betrayal away.

Living on Jakku she'd never had very many friends. Until Finn had crashed into her world she'd been on her own, lived as a hermit once she was free to live alone at the behest of Unkar Plutt and made no close friends because  _they_  would return one day. But with Finn, Chewbacca… Han… Leia... she had begun to feel like she had that foundation of friends that she'd never had-never let herself have-and her life had been filled with something she never knew she wanted: friends. There is a connection, a hope, a love tied to friendship that fills all the corners of her empty world and for a time had eased the pain of missing parents.

Rey pulls herself to her feet using the wall as leverage. Her back smarts angrily in reminder that she had hit that wall after the saber exploded.

When the impromptu Force connection with Kylo-no,  _Ben_ \- had happened she had been angry, fueled by a revenge ridden urge to kill the man who had killed one of her friends, her almost-mythological childhood hero.

And then there on that tiny isolated island with Master Skywalker she had begun to feel lost, alone, and she was losing her mission to find her purpose. He had been there, an ear to tell her frustrations, a lost soul like herself. Ben, so she thought, was entering that realm of friendship. She had even entertained the idea of being with him. He was attractive, they had a momentary connection, a spark deep in the Force that had nearly shouted: You compliment each other, like shadows and light in a mirror. She had trusted it, that feeling. But maybe she shouldn't have.

Rey begins the slow walk towards Ben, lying on the floor, crumpled and knocked out from the blast. Ashes and embers are still falling around them, sparks and bits of dying ship glowing out ever corner of the window. The ringing in her ears has subsided only to be replaced by the emergency klaxon and an automated voice saying in a tonally boring voice that there was a severe breech and all personnel were ordered to their muster stations and escape pods.

As she passes it she grabs the pieces of the shattered lightsaber, each a testament to a broken trust. The rage is filling her again, betrayal isn't something she takes lightly. The way he treated her isn't the way she wants to be treated.

She isn't sure, as she stands over his slack body, how much the eyebrow pinched expression on his face is from nightmare or physical pain.

She kneels down and reaches for his lightsaber. That violent, uncontrolled, untamed, crimson blade that had killed those she cared for, and probably would again because of its owner if he wasn't ended.

" _You're nothing! But not to me."_

She isn't a nobody. She knows herself! She is Rey, crack pilot, woman, partially trained Jedi. She is someone. To her friends, her true friends, she is someone. She knows even if they aren't physically there, that Finn, Chewbacca BB-8, Leia, and even Han, are with her because the Force connects all things.

She draws her hand back and instead presses a single finger to the space of pale skin between pinched eyebrows. At her touch his expression softens and he seems to just be sleeping peacefully. She feels that blind rage drain away and she sighs.

"You can't fix what isn't broken, and you can't change people who don't want to," she says in a chiding tone. "I hope what I saw comes true, I hope you let the light back in, but I won't take your toxic behavior lightly. It's your job to change, Ben. If you ever want to redeem what we could have had. I believe in you, never forget that, but I have to take care of myself and the people who need me now."

She touches his hair, smoothing out the tangles on top, and then smiles sadly as she rises to her feet.

In the corner a small light blinks above a sign for the emergency escape pod. With one last glance back at the man on the ground she goes to the escape pod and begins the departure tasks. Flip a switch, press a button, confirm. Step back, close door, press button, confirm.

The gravity shifts as the pod takes over power, propulsion, gravity, and direction. She presses a small beacon pinned to the inside of her vest under the collar and tries to meditate in the spare minutes until Chewie catches the beacon signal and retrieves her.

Later, as she reaches out to pull an avalanche of rocks away she reaches out just a little too far and there he is, just out of sight between the streams of the Force. She doesn't acknowledge it, him, until just after she feels Luke presence, like a single strand of a lute being plucked across the galaxy just before it breaks. There is a chill because for a time she could feel that not just her, not just Leia, but Ben too felt that lifeline twinge and vanish and they flowed in the same stream of the force, the waves rocking them all to the core.

Before she severs her end of that last red string of the Force between them she makes eye contact with him and she whispers across streams, waves, and currents of the Force:  _I believe in you._

He feels betrayed too. They really are so much alike, but like the sides of a coin they face opposite directions.

_Until we meet again._

It's not exactly a challenge, but a promise. They will meet again, equals, two sides of a coin, spinning around each other but always in balance, whether on the battlefield or across the oceans of space.

With determination she ruptures the Force connection between them. The amputation is punctuated by the close of the Millennium Falcon's gangway. As they speed away from Crait she takes a few deep breaths to release the stress that had piled on her shoulders. She smiles to herself as she watches Finn fuss over a small unconscious woman. She couldn't wait to tell him everything she had learned, and find out what he'd been up to. She had missed her friend and she can sense some measure of strength in his shoulders that hadn't been there before. She was proud of him no matter what he had been through because something had bolstered his place in this world.

Like Maz had said, the belonging she had looked for is ahead and not behind her. It is right in front of her the whole time. Maybe one day she and Ben could reconcile, maybe they could find themselves on the same page, maybe find themselves in the same stream of the Force behind a unity, a balance of that same Force. Only then would she ever put the maybe friend, the briefly entertained significant other, in his own place in her picture of her belonging.

...

"Please..." he says to her. He can feel the connection between them straining. Ever since their fight in the forests of the Starkiller he had recognized in Rey something that had always been with him. Something that he had yearned for for as long as his memory would take him back. The dream fades away and he wakes with a gasp. He is so angry. He wants to destroy it all.

He rages because Snoke manipulated his feelings. He created a bond with Rey that wasn't real. Had any of it been real?

He rages because Hux is weak, sniveling, and clearly doesn't see that he is in control now. No one was going to control him. HE, Ben, Kylo WHATEVER he was, was in control. He now had the power.

He rages, throws every ounce of his anger behind fighting what's left of what SHE cares for more than him. That stupid resistance. That stupid beautiful, strong woman. He wants her with him, but she has denied him. Just like his parents, just like Skywalker, and just as Snoke had done time and again, made him feel like he was an outsider.

He rages through the fight with Skywalker. Luke. His uncle. How could he have done this to him? It was his fault! And when he fades away with the final words that he would always be with him like... like his father... he shatters just a little bit more. It doesn't seem to matter how much resolve he finds, there's always another part of him breaking away.

And then there in the abandoned base he feels her, and looking up he sees her. Just out of reach. But so close he can see the look of sadness and hurt on her face.

 _Until we meet again._  She says to him over their connection before her end of it breaks.

He's never felt more broken in his life. But then he realizes that Snoke is gone. The connection was still there. He reaches out for it, but her end is so tightly closed it would be like throwing a snowball at a star destroyer. If she were a weaker mind then it might have been possible, but always Rey had been strong. Just as strong as him and his equal in the force. He looks at his hand where they had touched, where he had felt the vibrancy of their connection. They had something. They had lost it. He wondered if he would ever feel that connection again.

He leads the troops out, feeling Hux's anger at him boiling in the background. He doesn't care. Right now he wants to sleep. The exhaustion is taking over and he still had so much work to do to fully establish himself as the new Supreme Leader.

TBC...


	3. Comfortably Numb

**Chapter 3**  
**Comfortably Numb**

**Kylo Ren**  stands tall in front of the window overlooking the town of Wexsta. The small mining planet of Herodatny on the edge of the outer rim had few claims to fame and this small town was one of them. It was one of the few home bases of the First Order. One of the few places where Snoke had first made his foothold in the galaxy.

Hux was speaking behind him to a table full of seated generals and governors waiting for their orders on which of the recently conquered systems would go to which person. Ren had little time or patience for politics or the divvying up of land, but taking claim of the Supreme Leader's seat had come with unfortunate additions to his daily tasks.

He turned and watched the proceedings and tried to not let the bored expression cross his face. Living under the infamous Kylo mask had made it easy to hide his expressions from the masses but now he spent a considerable amount of time doing his best to control his face.

He was tired. He hadn't slept in the nearly 48 hours since the confrontation with the Resistance on Crait but the massive amount of stuff to do to finalize the First Order's control over the galaxy took precedence. Honestly, he really didn't care, but his impulsive actions to get to Rey and destroy her precious Resistance had overtaken his mind and he had stepped into shoes that he neither wanted nor cared for. If he wasn't sure Hux would screw everything up he would leave it all to him.

He felt his head start to throb unpleasantly. He swiftly crossed the room and stopped at Hux's back, "Give me a report later, I have other matters to attend to," and before the guttersnipe of a man could respond Kylo Ren left the conference room. He walked on autopilot, ignoring the troopers and officials who stopped to salute or cry blessings for the new Supreme Leader. He just wanted to sleep.

But there was another problem. The death of Snoke had left a hole. A hole he had no idea that been there in the first place, his mind felt filled with ideas and thoughts that had never been there before, idle daydreams of shedding his official outfits and wearing the soft cotton of… an image flashed in his mind of the clothes his father used to wear. He felt something pressing at the back of his eyes and cursed the tiredness pulling him down.

Kylo Ren pushed open the door to his chambers and shut the door behind him with a definitive click. The click shuddered through him as another memory clawed its way forwards. Her… Rey… standing tall looking down at him with disappointment, determination, and something he couldn't quite place. He wasn't sure who he hated more because of that look, her or himself.

He was trying to not think about it, but his mind had only briefly been focused to a razor's edge in the aftermath of Snoke's death. His rage, anger, and hate had driven him all the way through his encounter with Luke… but now he felt his mind slowly collapsing. He blamed it on the lack of sleep, and tried to not dwell on the idea that it might be something more.

In moments after entering his chambers he had everything off and was climbing into a loose pair of pants. Sleep had to come first. He couldn't sit here and possibly be a functioning member of the First Order much less its Supreme Leader if he was running on less than a few hours of sleep in the past three days.

He lay down on the simple bed and closed his eyes. Her face drifted in the expanse behind his eyelids. Her face, the eyes that glared at him definitely, that refused to buckle under the pressure of expectation. But behind those eyes he could always sense one of the first things he ever sensed from her. The loneliness. He opened his eyes and sighed. He hated it, that feeling. He hated sensing that feeling. It made him think of things that he didn't like thinking about. It made him think about a person who he used to be.

He rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes, ignoring the twinge of protest from the scar on his face. And then he sensed it, the shift in sound and air, and lying on his bed he saw her.

Back facing him, she was sitting cross-legged on the floor brushing out her damp hair. She paused briefly and tilted her head up as if listening to something.

He knew that she knew. But she never turned around. Never faced him. And after a few moments the door between them closed once again and she faded from the floor. The Force seemed to be taunting him. She had denied him then when he had asked her to join him… and even now she denied him. Snoke had clearly lied, or his truth had turned into something more because the merge of their minds was still active. He wanted to sleep, but he was so tired he didn't think he could… and the feeling of her loneliness echoed in the corners of his mind.

* * *

**Rey cursed**  silently to herself when the sound around her shifted and she knew he was behind her. She refused to turn and instead focused on yanking the knots out of her hair. Eventually it would end, it always did. When it finally faded away and she was in her own space… ALONE, she sighed and dropped her hairbrush into her lap. She wasn't ready for the day. Leia, Poe, and a few of the remaining leadership of the Rebellion were meeting up to discuss options. She turned her head and looked back at where Ben would have been had she looked back. The wall was empty except for a window overlooking the city of Estobar. Estobar was on a small planet in the outer rim that had no planetary allegiance to either the Republic or the First Order. There were hints that the FIrst Order would eventually make its way out to this corner of the galaxy but for now the vestiges of the new Rebellion were safely hidden in the masses of anonymity.

Rey pulled the top half of her hair into a wolf tail and shook it lightly. She left her part of the suite that shared a common room with three other bedrooms and found Finn, Rose, Poe, and BB-8 sitting in a half-circle couch talking. Rose had large bandages on her face and neck from the Battle of Crait but with Finn's care and constant attention she seemed to be in good spirits.

She grinned at them as she sat opposite. "Isn't it time to go?"

"Leia called to tell me to wait a little bit," Poe said, holding up a little handheld communicator. "She's meeting with some potential allies on the outskirts of the city and it's not going as well as she hoped."

"Oh. What about the others?" Rey fidgeted with her wristbands to get them to set right.

"Standing by right now." Poe shrugged.

"It's a waiting game," Finn grumbled and made a face. His hand was idly rubbing Rose's back while she was messing with a small ship part that she recognized as a hyperdrive component. She appeared to be trying to open it and Rey couldn't help but smile about the young woman. Her happy attitude was infectious and reminded Rey of herself in a lot of ways. The few opportunities that Rey had gotten to speak to her in the past two days had been few and far between but she was ecstatic to have someone like her be part of their little group. The doom and gloom that had settled around many of the remaining people of the Rebellion had begun to take its toll on everyone but she was a little bright spark of joy.

"We have so little to work with right now..." Poe said. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed heavily.

"Are you still blaming yourself?" Rey asked and shook her head.

"How can I not," Poe frowned. "If I hadn't… If I hadn't been so blind we wouldn't be down to less than a hundred people."

"Oh Poe..." Rey said and shook her head again. "We've been reduced to so little, but if we don't have the optimism to keep moving forwards then we aren't going to win!"

"See! That's what I said!" Rose piped up and shoved Poe's shoulder.

"Forgive yourself Poe. We've all made mistakes. I know easier said than done, but you must try!" Rey said.

"Mistakes that cost people their lives?" Poe stood and began to pace around the common room. "Leia is giving me a second chance at being a commander and I can't screw it up again."

The communicator in his hand beeped and he looked down at it. "They are ready for us. Meeting in the Falcon in fifteen minutes. Are you sure you guys don't want to come?" Poe addressed the last to Finn and Rose.

"We have to get Rose's last bacta treatment in a few, and I'm not letting her out of my sight until it's done," Finn crossed his arms and glared playfully at Rose.

Rose scoffed. "I can take care of myself."

"I know! But I still want to help!"

Rey chuckled and made eye contact with Poe. He shrugged and headed for the door. "We'll be back in a little bit then."

"Aha!" Rey heard Rose say and heard a little click of the hyperspace component as it popped open.

Rey shut the door behind her and Poe and they headed out into the halls of the TempStay building. Some of the other doors were open and she could hear people cheering and shouting. They had been sort of lucky to be in Estobar at the time they were. There was a huge week-long sports event on the other side of town and thousands of people had flooded the city to participate in the games or be a spectator. They were virtually invisible and that's what they needed to find their foundations.

* * *

**Armitage Hux**  was growing increasingly pissed. They had managed to recover a lot of the important parts of the Supremacy and some of the other Star Destroyers but just the cleanup alone was infuriating. "Supreme Leader" Kylo Ren couldn't seem to care less about what was going on with everything beyond his absolute need to track down the remaining members of the Resistence. Hux wanted to find the bastards too but right now they had to regroup. Over 80% of their fleet was absorbed with taking command of the remaining Republic systems and securing control over them. There were Governors to appoint and rules to put into place. Fortunately Hux had been in command of much of the process under Snoke's guidance, but Kylo Ren couldn't bring himself to offer any advice other than a snarky "It's your army General, what do you think you should be doing?"

Hux was walking down the hall of the building where they had set up their headquarters and stopped abruptly when he saw a small Lieutenant running down the hall towards him. "General, the package you requested." She handed him the small black box and saluted.

"Thank you, Lieutenant, you may go," Hux said, as he lifted his chin and looked down his nose at the woman. He tucked the box under his arm and swiftly made his way to the command room where he had a small space set aside to work on all the nuances of running the First Order.

He set the box on the desk and eyed the backs of the other people working beyond the glass wall that cordoned off the small office. He opened the box and inside was a thin clear chip the size of his hand. On it would be the answers to the question that had been burning in his mind ever since he had found Kylo Ren unconscious in Snoke's throne room.

How had some upstart girl killed eight Praetorian Guards, Snoke, and knocked Kylo Ren unconscious? Something about that didn't sit right with Hux and he was not about to let the truth slip through his fingers. He inserted the chip into the viewscreen and selected the infrared video file, he was lucky, extremely lucky that it had been Snoke's idea to have infrared scanning and video of every room aboard the Supremacy. The BB unit that had discovered the interlopers FN-2187, thief, and Resistance snipe, and been proof enough that actively scanning for intruders and watching everyone had worked out. He had initially been surprised that Snoke wanted to have a viewing in his throne room but found out later that he liked to watch the recordings of torture that he put criminals and others through. It was about to show Hux exactly what happened and he had a good idea that Kylo Ren hadn't been completely honest about it.

He found the timeframe of when Kylo Ren and the Jedi girl had entered the throne room and began to watch. All seemed to be going well until he saw the girl kneeling in front of Kylo Ren and it appeared that he was going to strike her down. She was helpless through it all until..

Hux sneered in anger and disgust as the scene changed and played out. Kylo Ren killing Snoke with a poorly placed blue lightsaber, fighting back to back with the girl, and then finally a fight of will and Force power over the same blue lightsaber. He saw them both knocked to the ground in the resulting explosion that coincided with the destruction of the Supremacy at the hands of the rebels. He saw the girl wake first, collect the pieces of the lightsaber, touch the head, gently, of Kylo Ren and then disappear into the escape ship.

He was ready to confront the dark side user and out him as a traitor but he knew that Kylo Ren was far stronger than him and would likely kill him. He had to smart about this. He had to find someone stronger than Ren to take him out and he knew just what to do.

TBC... what the heck does Hux have in mind?


	4. Speak to Me

**Chapter 4**

**Speak to Me**

**Kylo Ren**  felt something shift and it startled him awake. Part of him expected to see Rey somewhere around, even ignoring him, but she wasn't. The shift in the Force was subtle but unsettling all the same. He sat up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. There was a little light blinking from his bedside table and upon looking at the device blinking he realized that it was just the report he had requested before leaving the meeting earlier in the day. He opened the report on his tablet and skimmed it. It was just a bunch of boring political crap and at the bottom was a request from Hux for a private audience. He frowned and decided to meet with the General the next day. It wasn't that late in the day but he wasn't ready to talk minutiae with the man, in all honesty he wanted to get out and wander.

His head was feeling weird again. Ever since Snoke had died his mind just felt empty and anxious at the same time. He couldn't put words to it, but he knew deep down that Snoke had always been there. For as long as he could remember Snoke had been just as much part of his life like a limb and now that it was gone… The ghost of a feeling was still there. He had thrown it all away, for HER and now look at where he was. He was a warrior, a fighter, not a Supreme Leader. Who was he kidding? If she had just taken his hand then they could have ruled the First Order together. She would probably know what to do with all the nonsense that Hux kept throwing at him.

Ren started to pull on some clothes and tried to shake the feeling of prickles from his nerves. He needed to get out. He wandered out into the hall and used the Force to shift people's focus from him. They wouldn't really see him walking past them and they certainly wouldn't remember crossing paths. He had long gotten used to the stiff way people looked at him as Kylo Ren, but now as Supreme Leader he felt like he was being stared at and scrutinized even more harshly. Really he wanted to see Rey again, at first she looked at him with hate, then with compassion, and finally with disappointment and sadness, because of him and for him. He hated that the most. He could handle the hate, he could accept the compassion, but the disappointment and sadness, those hurt. He was loathe to admit it but he really wanted to know what it looked like to see her smile. He had seen the loneliness in her mind, he had seen the abject sadness of her position in life, but wrapped around that was a strong spirit, an optimistic outlook, and a sense of spunkiness that he had only glimpsed in her memories and seen for the briefest of moments in Snoke's throne room. She was a force of a person, just as strong as her control over the Force itself.

Ren found himself outside. The sun had fallen recently and the sky was a brilliant orange and red. He let out a sigh and pushed his way through the people shuffling up and down the street. None of them looked at him except in passing and there was little emotion or accusation to their gazes. To them he was nothing and for a time that's all he wanted.

* * *

**Rey sat** in the cockpit with Chewie as they began the process of taking apart some of the stupider upgrades to the ship that Unkar Plutt had placed on the ship during his brief ownership of the Falcon. "He was only good at swindling people," Rey commented to Chewie as she yanked at a yellow wire under the console.

Chewie rumbled a response and the little porg on his shoulder squaked noisily. The meeting with Leia, Poe and the others had gone well. Leia was working to create the foundations of the new rebellion by making supply connections and convincing the allies of the former Resistance that there was still hope for their cause. In spite of how far they had fallen, Leia had grown with the rebellion against the former Empire over three decades ago and she was in her element, with, an albeit depressed, Poe at her side she seemed ready for the fight ahead.

Inevitably her thoughts turned to Ben. She peeled the casing of a piece of wire away with her knife and wrapped the exposed metal around another open wire under the console. She had felt so heartbroken that he had turned away from escaping the First Order, that she hadn't been enough to pull him along with her. Rey knew Ben still had the potential in him and the vision of him turning was still bright in her mind's eye. She had begun to suspect that the future she saw wasn't supposed to be in the throne room but elsewhere, somewhere in the far future, the path to which was still unclear to her. There were little feelings that plagued her that since Luke had passed that some things she had been besieged by since her youth had been resolved but others were still loose ends reaching out into the galaxy to find purchase. The island Ahch-to, as soon as she saw it, she knew that those dreams hadn't been dreams but visions of the future. That's why she had assumed so strongly that the vision of Ben turning away from the dark had to be the future and it was so strong it had to be soon. But she had been wrong. He hadn't turned, but she had to give him credit. He had taken a step away from Snoke in killing him but not the next to take him away from the dark side. She had sensed his fear after their fight with the Praetorian guards. He was afraid to be alone, afraid that he had taken the clear path of the dark side under Snoke away from himself.

What hurt the most had been the "Please..." as he had nearly begged her to not leave him. He had been afraid that she would leave him, and she had fulfilled that fear. It broke her heart but she had to stand her ground.

She felt a subtle shift in the Force and for a brief moment thought that the Force might be connecting her and Ben again. But the shift in senses and sound never came. Something pricked at her nerves and she shuddered.

Chewie looked up and growled a query, there was concern on his face.

"No, not cold, not sure. I might just need to step out for a few," Rey said and untangled herself from the console wires. "I'll be back Chewie, I'm going to get some air."

Chewie muttered a "be careful" and went back to work on his part of the console.

Rey grabbed her staff and satchel which carried a few credits, the broken lightsaber, and a little canteen. She stepped out into the bright light of the bustling space port and made a beeline for the stalls selling wares to travellers coming and going. She had been putting off thinking about the lightsaber but while the meeting had taken place earlier she had flipped through the sacred Jedi texts and found one that detailed how to build lightsabers. It was just the basics and the words were in an ancient form of Arabesh that she had only a vague grasp of. As a child and teenager she had been a voracious reader especially once she got her little computer working to let her use a flight simulator. Precious portions had been traded for the data sticks and days of time gathering the parts from various Rebellion and Empire ships across Jakku, but once it had been up and running she had read anything and everything she could get her hands on. Her fluency with many common tongues in the galaxy was due to finding the internal storage of a translator droid when she was twelve and spending many a sleepless night learning to foreign languages.

She stopped outside the stall of a junk trader and sighed. The little creature behind the counter wasn't nearly as grotesque as Unkar Plutt had been but he had the same eyes. Conniving, secretive, and willing to stab anyone in the back. She focused on the little mind of the alien and as she questioned him about parts she needed she pushed the parts of his thoughts around subtly so that he wouldn't be compelled to sell her broken parts or faulty electronics.

The book on how to build lightsabers had only gone into minor details about connecting the kyber crystal to an emitter. Nothing about style or form. That was apparently up to the wielder. She hadn't minded the form of the Skywalker blade but the balance had felt off, because it hadn't been made with her hands in mind.

Leaving the stall with a few small parts that spoke to her, Rey moved on to other stalls, picking up a piece here, another there. Somewhere in the back of her mind tiny memories that weren't her own but ones that she had fed off in times of great need helped her frame some of the things she would need to build the saber. The memories were Ben's from when she had invaded his mind during his interrogation of her at Starkiller base. She hadn't realized just how much her mind had siphoned off him until she had reached the quiet island of Ahch-to and had to shuffle the scattered memories around in her mind. Sometimes lately when she slept the dreams and nightmares that still woke her in the night they weren't always her own and she felt even more for the abuse that Ben had endured his whole life. His childhood, his adulthood, it had all been stolen by Snoke.

She felt the shift in sound and space and looking across the scattered crowds saw Ben walking side by side with her. He looked down at her stunned and opened his mouth to speak. She looked away and willed the connection to go away. She wasn't ready yet. After a moment things returned to normal and she shuddered, she knew that with the Force still connecting them that eventually she would have to speak to him, but it couldn't be yet, it couldn't be now. She had to figure out her own emotions before she could give anything more to him. The brief glimpse she had gotten of him showed him in a simple black shirt with his normal black pants. There was no cape, no cowl, he looked so aggressively normal that if she didn't know better she would have assumed him to be just any other pedestrian in the street. His eyes had been sad, lost. If she hadn't looked away she might have tried to hug him and there was no telling what physical contact would do over the Force bond. Last time it had shown them each visions of a future that might or might not come to pass. She wasn't ready to add more uncertainty to her life.

* * *

**Hux typed**  out the communique with as much detail as he could. The recipient probably wouldn't need that much detail but he wasn't about to leave anything to chance. Ren hadn't shown his face after Hux had sent the report of the duties assigned to each territorial governor but he wasn't too terribly broken up about it. All he needed to do was poke and prod at the man a little to figure out just how much control over the First Order Hux would get away with uninterrupted.

He had also sent a request to a certain person under Snoke's command that hadn't been seen in this part of the galaxy in nearly two years. She had been away doing the bidding of Snoke. With her and the recipient of this communique he would get the First Order back on track. Kylo Ren would get his comeuppance.

With a smile he reread over his words, changed a few things, and then sent the message. He wasn't sure if he would get a response. The person at the other end of this message was very far away.

He got a beep from his console and smiled wickedly. Vic Elan, Snoke's other apprentice had received and replied. She was on her way from the other side of the galaxy. Hux had met Vic Elan only once in his career as a member of the First Order, but she had been just as intimidating as Kylo Ren. Snoke knew how to pick fierce apprentices and Hux hoped that she wouldn't be as easily swayed by the wiles of some Jedi girl. Now he just had to wait for the second communique to reach its target.

"Only a matter of time,  _Ben Solo._ " Hux said and picked up one of the things recovered from Snoke's throne room. A black diamond set on a gold ring. It had to be pulled off Snoke's severed hand and the ring was far too big for him to wear but Kylo Ren hadn't seemed interested in retaining the thing. "Only a matter of time."

TBC… Hux got some shiz up his sleeve.

I read somewhere that Snoke supposedly has another apprentice so that's why I created Vic Elan. Don't be afraid of a self-insert, Mary Sue, because if I do this right she won't be one.


	5. Empty Spaces

**Chapter 5**

**Empty Spaces**

**Ren returned** to the headquarters more flustered than when he left. He hadn't expected the sudden appearance of Rey at his side as he walked the ever darkening street but her insistence at ignoring him was getting to him.

He thought about returning to his rooms but blatantly remembered Hux's request of a meeting. Ren made his way through the halls letting the people around him see him this time and entered the area where Hux kept his office. The other people in the room eyed him out of the corner of their eyes but he ignored them. Entering Hux's office he wondered if the man was still working or if he had gone to do what normal semi-adjusted people did rest. Hux was less than well adjusted but he seemed to revel in being a normal human being for a few hours a day.

Just before he was about to leave the office something on the desk caught his eye. It was Snoke's ring. The black diamond ring had been a feature of Snoke for as long as he had known him and it seemed odd to see it sitting there not attached to the dark side user's hand. He reached down to pick it up and as his fingers touched the black surface for the first time he felt a cold shock run down his body.

He was falling. The sounds and lights around him were shifting darker and darker as if he were falling into the core of the black diamond. Whispers and screams spun around him, and memories began to bleed through his mind. There were too many to hold onto but they were all familiar, too familiar. They were all his memories. He saw the moment that he killed Snoke the clarity unreal for a memory, he saw the moment that he saw inside the mind of the scavenger Rey for the first time, and further back the memories went. The pain, the suffering, the fear, the anger, all filled the space around him and he began to drown. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't see anything but the violence of his own life. He started to cry. He was stuck with his mind slowly filling with pain, and his soul cracking into deeper and deeper shards.

 _Ben!_  He heard her voice, but didn't see her.

"Rey?" he asked, or tried to, nothing was working. His jaw wouldn't move he was paralyzed as all the memories drove themselves into his core and dragged him under.

Suddenly a hand reached through the black abyss and he saw her face. She dove through the darkness drowning him and with a sing touch through their bond he was back in Hux's office. She was gone, but the echoes of her presence, like the moment they had touched hands only a couple days prior, shuddered through his mind. He looked down at the black diamond in his hand and tried to breathe normally again. He looked around but through the glass wall the other occupants of the room hadn't noticed the meltdown.

Ren… Ben… who was he? He couldn't seem to find the line anymore between who he had destroyed and who he had become. He slipped the black diamond into the band of his pants and left the office, ignoring the side glances of the First Order members.

* * *

 **Rey shuddered.** The moment she had felt the cry for help across the Force bond she had been stunned into immobility. The crowds around her moved like melting shapes and she had to hold herself steady with her staff. She felt on the verge of tears and when the bond opened up she saw Ben standing before her, staring at something in his gloved hand with an expression of terror. The look had scared her, she had even broken her vow to not speak to him yet and said his name.

Then tentatively she had touched his shoulder and he jerked and faded quickly out of sight as the bond broke. She wasn't sure what had happened but the surge of emotions across the bond had startled her. She turned and headed back towards the spaceport. Getting out had been a good idea but now she just felt unsettled and needed to be around something that made sense.

Rey wanted to reach out and find the other side of her bond with Ben, to ask him if he was alright, to assure him that whatever had terrified him wasn't real. Not that she knew if it was or not, it just seemed that she wanted to say something, anything to him to not see that look of fear on his face.

She entered the Falcon and poked her head into the cockpit where Chewie and his porg were still messing with the console. Chewie was speaking to the porg like it could understand him and was apparently explaining how the ship thrusters took commands from the console. She smiled and left not wanting to interrupt. He had seemed less depressed with the little porg by his side and Rey was glad that he was beginning to heal from Han's death. Part of her had decided that in order for her to heal from Han's passing was to save his son, but when the moment came and went and Ben had gone the other way she had felt like a failure. She sat at the little chess table and pulled out the Jedi text on lightsabers again.

She had a new mission now. The role as beacon of hope that she had wanted Luke to fill was now in her lap. And if she was to be a Jedi in whatever form she was in, she had to have a saber.

She set all the parts out in front of her and looked between them and the book. But she couldn't concentrate. Her mind kept drifting back to Ben.

* * *

 **Ben… Kylo** Ren… felt lost. His mind was confused. He disappeared back into his rooms and shut the door softly behind him. He felt even more exhausted than he had when he'd not slept for two days. But part of him was agitated and he knew if he slept then whatever was happening to him was going to get worse. He didn't want to see that black, oily, inside of the black diamond again. Why had he brought it with him?

He sat heavily on the edge of his bed and started into nothingness. The convoluted memories that filled his mind were all vying for attention. They all wanted to be seen at once, but there was no way to process it all. So he closed his eyes and tried to focus on the most recent. The moment he had broken free of Snoke, the clarity that had entered his mind at that point, the resolve that had come over him, it was all there in that memory. He could see Rey forced to kneel in front of him while Snoke encouraged him to cut her down, he could see the tears in her eyes as she pleaded with him with only her expression to trust in the faith that she had in him.

Something had been pushed aside then, a fog that had always been there, a tight shackle of Snoke's mind around his had come undone. He climbed further back, to the moment that he had killed his own father, and he started to cry in earnest. His father had had that same face, that faith in him that he had betrayed in the hopes of becoming stronger. The feeling of brokenness that had overcome him in the moments after his father had touched his face for the last time and something in his eyes had said " _I forgive you. I love you."_

Ben buried his face in his shaking hands and tried to not lose himself in the sobs wracking his body. He had opened the floodgates. THe memories took him step by step further back and he began to see the difference. The difference in the way that he had seen the world and the way that Snoke had MADE him see the world. The words he had so carelessly said to Rey "You're nothing, but not to me" punctuated the memories, but it was in Snoke's voice telling him at every turn, at every doubt, at every moment of indecision that without Snoke Ben was nothing.

In between the memories, some of which didn't play out the way he remembered them, Snoke's voice, always there in his head, breaking him down, tearing him apart, and rebuilding him in some mottled grotesque version of himself.

_**Look at you, lost boy. You'll never be strong without me.** _

_**Everyone but me will betray you, you'll see.** _

_**You don't really believe that they can show you the way? You're misguided, lost.** _

_**Unless you follow me, they will all turn their backs on you.** _

_**I am the best thing for you.** _

_**I will show you the way. Only I can.** _

_**You're nothing.** _

_**You want to be like Vader but he was so much more than you, prove yourself to me and me alone!** _

_Stop._  Ben pleaded with the voice.

_**If I stop then who will you be? You're nothing. No one. A child in a mask.** _

_STOP_. He opened his eyes only realizing moments later that he was clutching the black diamond in his hand. It was glowing with a dark light. Insidious and evil it called to him to walk the path of the dark.  _ **Come to me Kylo Ren. Without me you are nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.**_

The voice of Snoke laughed.

Kylo Ren set the black diamond on the bedside table and shuddered.  _I'm not nothing, am I?_

_But if not nothing, who am I?_

_**Nothing.** _

TBC...

 


	6. What Do You Want From Me?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chaps 1 - 6 were already posted on FF.Net so yay for not having to wait for those? Anyway getting to work on the next chapter. Stay tuned!

**C** **hapter 6**

**What Do You Want From Me?**

**Rey was**  almost as tired as Finn was with all the waiting. Leia and Poe were off planet working on more of the foundations and getting back into contact with the Bothan spy network of old. Leia had said to her many times upon realizing how restless she and the others were becoming that they didn't have to stay on planet if they didn't want to. They could always be called back when the time was right. Rey didn't feel good about leaving them all behind again, but her mind was desperately seeking the peace and quiet of Ahch-To again. The Falcon was almost fixed to the point where both she and Chewie were happy with it. She had asked Chewie time and again if he wanted to go and do something else he could, there was no reason for him to stay. But he would always shake his head and respond that "It's what Han would have wanted."

The wookie took his life debt to Han Solo very seriously, even after his death.

It had been a week since the last time the Force had connected Ben and her and she was beginning to worry that something had happened to him. She doubted herself and if she should be actively seeking him out. She had felt his loneliness even more during whatever event had caused the Force to connect them that last time.

She reached out with the Force as she had done everyday for the past week and tried to meditate. The town around them was a thousand times more chaotic than Ahch-To had been and the balance in the Force was a little more difficult to find. But everyday she sat for a few moments to find it. One of the Jedi texts had discussed the Prime Jedi, the symbol of the ideal version of the Jedi, balanced between light and dark, two parts of a greater whole. There had always existed a tendency for the users of the Force to drift towards one side or the other, according to the book, but that a true master would find the path between the two. Other than the three lessons given by Luke on the island, she had received no other training and in a way she was her own master. She had gleaned everything on her own, and truthfully she had even siphoned some skills off Ben during his interrogation of her. She was far from being a true master of the Force.

That brought up her most recent failure. The lightsaber didn't want to get built. Something was wrong with it.. She had been using the kyber crystal from inside Luke's old blade but it didn't seem to want to work with the new hilt and emitter, and other parts. She was beginning to suspect that she was going to have to find a new crystal. Upon closer inspection she had found that the crystal had a tiny crack through it but she wasn't sure if the crack was from the battle of wills she and Ben had displayed over it or if it was from something else.

Rey felt silly for doing it but mid-meditation she questioned the Force itself,  _where do I find what I need for this blade?_

Sudden images flooded her mind and she gasped. She lost the vision when she let her eyes snap open. She had seen a city, floating in the sky, above umber clouds. She didn't know what the place was but she knew that the Force wanted her to go there. Rey crawled off her bed and poked her head out into the common room. Finn and Rose were playing a card game and laughing at each other's mistakes. "Hey," Rey called out and they looked up at her mid-laugh. "Do either of you know about a city that floats above the clouds?"

Rose blinked but then said uncertainly… "Cloud City? On Bespin?"

Finn nodded at that. "I think there are other kinds of cities like that on other gas giants but Cloud City is the most famous from the old war."

Rey nodded and then ignoring their questioning looks she closed her door again and pondered an idea. Until Leia had something for them to do, she needed to focus on being an icon of the Jedi for new rebellion. She needed to go to this Cloud City if it was indeed the place that the Force wanted her to go. She would send a message to Leia later getting her blessing but for now she needed to check with Chewie.

Rey got dressed and with a quick "See you later" to Finn and Rose she headed for the spaceport.

* * *

**Kylo Ren**  was not pleased with the woman standing in front of him. She was a couple years younger than him but acted as if she were much older and wiser. Vic Elan looked much the same as she had the last time he had seen her, with a shaved head, and black ensemble that closely mirrored his own. She was smirking at him and sitting on the table in his room like she owned it.

"Why are you here?" Ren asked.

"Our master is dead and here you have taken his place as Supreme Leader, you think I would just let that fly?" Vic Elan shook her head and grinned. "When I felt the old man die I was actually quite happy to have his claws out of my brain, but what's stopping me from usurping you?"

"You're no leader." Ren crossed his arms and looked out the window.

Vic scoffed. "Neither are you. And you won't hold that title of Supreme Leader for long either, Ren."

"What makes you think that?"

"Tsk tsk, Ren, have you taken the time to look in the mind of your little read-headed second in command. He  _hates_  you."

"I don't need to look into his mind to know that."

"Ah, but you also don't know that he not only called me here, he also called upon Lord Eska."

That gave Ren pause. Lord Eska was an elusive figure, he was the same strange humanoid species as Snoke and answered only to Snoke. Ren had met him once and honestly never wanted to again. "Why would he do that?"

"The little man wants you gone. I could honestly care less what the little creep wants, he seems to think I have a greater loyalty to Snoke than I do to you. Which we all know is very, very small."

"I think you mean non-existent."

"Details, darling," she laughed, but it wasn't a happy laugh. It actually sounded cruel.

"If you're telling me this what are you getting out of it? Surely it would benefit you more if Eska got here and took command."

"It benefits me that he isn't here, Ren. I have been free to do my own thing with little oversight from the old man for years, you think I want some Snoke stand in to tell me what to do?"

"What have you been doing?" Ren eyed her.

She rolled her eyes. "None of your business. But once Lord Eska gets here and decides that things would be better if he were in command of Snoke's dream do you really think you're going to be strong enough to hold onto your position? Eska is nearly as good as Snoke in the dark side, I would know, I had to work under the man for a whole year while you were off playing with your Knights."

"I wasn't playing," Ren growled.

"No? Could have fooled me."

"Vic, if you have a point to this visit then get it out or leave my chambers." Ren's patience had finally worn out.

"Fine," she hopped off her seat on the table and headed towards the door, "watch yourself Ren, your little Huxy knows that you lied about Snoke and he's out for blood. The fact that he messaged me to tell me that you are a traitor and has messaged Eska too… you aren't safe. Your time here is running out."

"I'll be fine," Ren said, staring at her as she neared the door.

"For your sake, I hope you are, but I'll be placing my bets with Huxy and Eska. There's a weakness to you right now Ren and if I can sense it so will Eska." Vic Elan wiggled her fingers at him and left his room.

"Shit..." Ren sat heavily on the edge of his bed and pressed his gloved fingers into his temples. He had barely slept all week and he was feeling the effects of sleep deprivation. His dreams were keeping him awake, and they were only getting worse as the nights went on. He was dreaming memories. The black diamond now sitting on his bedside table was silent and dark but it's effects had stayed. Every night a memory would visit him reminding him of just how evil he had become. Just how terrible a person he had been. All the deaths, the murders, the monstrous ways he had acted at the behest of Snoke piled up in his mind and at night he could count the tally marks against him. Rey had been right. He was a monster.

He hadn't seen her through the Force in a week and it made him wonder if the bond had finally broken. He wanted to reach out through the Force to find her, but the way the dreams in the night tortured him he didn't want to show her how far he had fallen. Didn't want her to see how much he hurt at night, alone and shred anew from the memories of his actions. He was less afraid of her seeing it and more afraid of her not caring. It didn't seem like something she would do, but fear was irrational and he knew it.

He had been trying to be more attentive to what Hux wanted to do with the First Order and had all but put him absolute control, but he just couldn't focus and something wasn't sitting right with him. If Lord Eska was on his way then Ren had little time to be stressing about his lack of sleep. He had to get to work and a much as he hated to admit she was right, Vic Elan had hit the nail on the head, he was weak, his dreams made him so, his need for Rey made him so. But there was nothing he could do to fix what was happening to him right now.

All he could do would be to wait for Lord Eska and cross that bridge when he came to it.

* * *

**Hux opened**  the channel in his chambers and did his best to hold back a smile. The face of Lord Eska appeared and while not as damaged and broken as Snoke's he was clearly of the same species.

"General Hux, prepare for my arrival. And notify the traitor Kylo Ren that he is to meet with me upon my arrival."

"Yes, sir."

The holo cut out and Hux felt a little bit of glee take over him.

He had one of the stormtroopers standing outside go to get Kylo Ren. He was having a hard time retaining his absolute joy at what was about to transpire.

It only took an hour to get everything together but when Lord Eska arrived Hux had a hard time not blinking in shock. Eska was at least half a foot taller than Snoke had been and the shiny black robes that he wore made him seem more like a specter of death. Hux hoped it was going to be Ren's death.

Lord Eska took a seat on the tall chair that would have been Snokes. In the week and half they had been here, Ren hadn't touched the seat. It was just one more sign that Ren wasn't fit for the job of Supreme Leader. Following behind Eska was the bald headed Vic Elan. She had met Lord Eska at the spaceport and with the everpresent smirk on her face stood to the side as the three of them waited for Ren.

When he finally showed up he walked with a strength and purpose in his step that Hux hadn't seen since the Battle of Crait. Ren stepped before Lord Eska and his nearly expressionless face stared at the lord.

"I believe you are sitting in my chair," Ren said cooly.

TBC...


	7. Wish You Were Here

**Chapter 7**

**Wish You Were Here**

**Rey felt**  something strange happening, a ripple in the Force. It wasn't the same kind that meant someone died, it was something different. She reached out with her feelings and tried to find its source but it eluded her and she felt a brittle anxiety rise in the back of her mind. She suspected that it might have something to do with Ben, but with their Force Bond inexplicably closed for the moment it was hard to say for sure.

A questioning growl from Chewie pulled her out of her reverie and she looked up. "Oh, nothing. I'm fine. Just thinking about what we have to do when we get to Bespin."

Chewie, R2, and Rey were all in the common area of the Millennium Falcon working on different parts to get it ready for the flight to Cloud City. Leia had given her blessing for the three of them to go off on the journey and had even given them things to take with them to the city. After the war Bespin had become an independent governing body and hadn't technically been part of the new Republic when it had fallen to the First Order. They were managing to keep their independence by sheer number of their own military.

"An old friend still runs the place, give him this will you?" Leia had handed her a package that was small but heavy.

"What is it?" Rey had asked.

"That is for Lando to decide if he wants to share." Leia had smiled and brought Rey in for a hug. "Be safe out there, and come back to us."

"I will." She had replied, but there was something ominous causing ripples in the Force somewhere out there and she wasn't sure that boded well for anyone.

Rey put Leia's package into a storage cabinet and took to her own pre-flight duties. She had hoped that Poe or Finn would have wanted to come along but by now they were each walking their own small paths through the Rebellion. When she returned with a working saber she would be able to take on her role as the Rebellion's Jedi.

R2 beeped and trilled a series of statuses from the Falcon. Chewie roared an affirmative.

They were ready.

She and Chewie sat in the cockpit and disengaged from the hanger bay while R2 sat in the back and monitored systems. His statuses read live on her console display. As the Falcon was towed out onto the tarmac the light of midday speared through the cockpit and Rey let out a sigh. Just beyond the tarmac safetyline a dozen or so people that she had grown fond of since becoming part of the Resistance stood waving farewell. Among them were Leia, Finn, Poe, Rose, BB-8, and half the crew that she had ferried from Crait. She waved back even though she knew they probably couldn't see her through the glare on the Falcon transparisteel. Rey hated that some part of this felt like a final farewell but she tried to think of it as if she were going out into the galaxy to become a better person. When they returned it would be like she was a new person. Reborn.

Ugh… reading the Jedi texts was starting to make her wax poetic about philosophical things. She shook her head just in time to hear the little beep of the console that indicated that the tower was giving them clearance to depart.

Rey and Chewie lifted the Falcon up through the atmosphere and as soon as they hit escape velocity the ship rattled in protest. She was an old thing, but Rey and Chewie had done an insane amount of work to get the old girl into perfect running order. Old didn't mean bad, and the Falcon wore her age well. As a girl on Jakku she had only seen it for its surface and cosmetics but on the inside this ship was strong and built to last.

Chewie roared a question.  _Are you ready?_

"Yes, I think so," Rey said without much conviction. She plotted the course to Bespin and with a mutual nod shared between pilot and co-pilot she pulled the hyperspace lever. The stars around them streaked and the Falcon settled into hyperspace like a cat on a blanket. Chewie's porg took that moment to squak. Rey chuckled… or as snug as a porg sitting on a wookie's shoulder. Chewie murmured to the porg and patted it gently.

Rey smiled and laughed openly. It was too adorable for words.

The flight to Bespin would take three hours so both Rey and Chewie settled into their own respective pass times for the duration. Chewie wandered into the back of the ship and Rey sat with her feet up on the console with a couple of the Jedi texts. Since leaving Crait she'd spent most of her time reading the one on lightsaber craft and occasionally reading the one that talked about the philosophy of the ancient Jedi. For the trip to Bespin she pulled one out that had a dualistic symbol on the first page. It was the exact same as the pebble mural inside the pool of water where Luke had taught her the few lessons he could before he had passed on.

To say that the light dies if the Jedi die is vanity. Wasn't that the first lesson?

The second of the hubris of the Jedi.

She sighed heavily and propped the book open in her lap. The fine calligraphy and fancy but simple artwork on the pages of flimsi were old, ancient, but there was an energy in the pages that wasn't ordinary. It was a thing of the Force, or something like it. As she flipped through the pages she let archaic words pop out at her but nothing kept her eyes until she saw a phrase that jumped out at her.

_The Prime Jedi ist thine benefactor of knowledge and will. It is through the Prime that all will know equal parts dark and light in the Force. Thy will, and the will of the Force is that of balance. This is a thing of the galaxy that shall not be thus ignored. Lose balance and the Force will take what it needs to right itself. The folly of past Jedi has been to take too much of one side or the other, thus losing sight of the will of the Prime and losing sight of what it means to be one with the Force._

Luke hadn't really taught her anything about the light side of the Force, and what little she had gleaned in her half-witted efforts to train herself in the Force since grasping what it meant to really feel the Force she knew enough to know where to draw the line in the sand between light and dark. But she was also realizing that there wasn't a line at all, that between the light and the dark was a gradient of glimmering grey. Like the symbol of the Prime Jedi the Force as it presented itself to her was an amorphous thing. Intent, belief, these were things that let her use the Force. She has used the Force with the intent to kill, for self-defense, and to save Ben from the Praetorian Guards. She had used aggression, and anger, and passion to drive herself through battle. Weren't these inherently dark side things? But she had also used the Force to save her friends, to bring light and life into the darkness that surrounded the burgeoning Rebellion.

Rey pressed a finger to the page where the Prime Jedi sat balanced between light and dark. Everything she had learned about the struggle between light and dark told her enough that unless something changes the battle for the soul of the galaxy would be lost. Too many Sith, everyone suffered. Too many Jedi, and still, people suffered.

She would be lying to herself if didn't acknowledge the burning thought at the back of her mind. The only time she had ever felt in balance, with the Force, with herself, and with the things around her had been when she and Ben had fought back to back. For the briefest of moments they had been in balance and all had been right, but then… they had lost it.

She yearned for Ben to be here with her, exploring the facets of grey in the false dichotomy of the Force that they had all been fed.

* * *

 **Ren stood**  looking up at Lord Eska. The creature, whatever he was was staring back with a glint of evil glee in his blue eyes.

"Your seat? YOUR SEAT?" Lord Eska stood towering over Ren. "It has come to my attention that you have killed Supreme Leader Snoke with a false sense of impunity. I do believe that you are a traitor and have no-" Ren didn't wait for him to quit monologing and drew his lightsaber.

Lord Eska raised his hands and a trickle of electricity crackled between his fingers. "You will die!"

Ren snarled and ignoring the surprised shout from Hux he rushed at Eska. Vic Elan stepped back and out of the way. Eska shot a harsh bolt of electricity at Ren and it sent him flying back. Ren rolled into the momentum and when he final stopped sliding across the floor he already had one knee up ready to leap back into action. Ren gritted his teeth as his body jittered from the exposure. He rushed Eska again ready for the bolt of electricity and reached his free hand out to capture it with the Force.

"Vic Elan if you truly carry any loyalty to me you will help me!" Ren shouted to the woman.

She shook her head. "I'm sorry Ren, I only have loyalty for myself right now. Good luck." And with that she bolted for the widow and crashed through disappearing into the darkness.

Ren turned the electricity back used the Force to reroute its destructive energy back at Eska. Eska waved a hand and it hit a wall behind him. Eska screamed in frustration and changed tactics. Ren had gotten used to Snoke being in every corner of his mind. He had always been there, in the darkest corners, whispering poison into his ears for as long as Ren has been alive. When he was nothing more than Ben Solo, child of Leia and Han. As Ben, he could only remember a few times in his life where he'd truly been allowed to break free from the legacy of his family's past, and of the expectations of his future. Everything else had been filled with terror, anxiety, fear, loneliness, abandonment. He had taken the first step in freeing his mind and reaching for something more precious when he had killed Snoke, not only to save himself but to save the woman he had begun to…

For the briefest of weeks his mind had been blissfully free, and then terrifyingly free, like he was in a free fall from a great height. He knew instinctively that he would have to learn how to fly or he was going to hit the proverbial ground.

Lord Eska was trying to invade his mind like Snoke had done one too many times, and Ren knew that if he didn't stop Eska right here and right now, the vestigial wings of his mental freedom would be clipped before he had a chance to really learn how to soar.

Time seemed to slow as Ren moved across the expanse of the room deflecting electricity with his hands and the mental barrages with the knowledge that Lord Eska, just like Snoke had no true power over him. He was free. Ren remembered a time when he had a strange, small scavenger girl in an interrogation chamber and being thoroughly resisted by her inner-strength. He admired that girl, that woman, and when he turned Eska's attacks back on him he thought of her, and her fearlessness. He wanted to see that face of hers again. He wanted to see her smile because of him and for him.

Lord Eska didn't see the saber because Ren directed all of his focus on making Eska defend himself mentally. And the saber cut true across his throat killing him instantly. But he didn't have time to celebrate. The whole of everything around him imploded.

* * *

**_Moments earlier..._ **

" **Sir, everyone**  is out."

"Excellent," Hux said and tapped his access code into the console. The screen began a countdown. "Get to your transport and report to me when everyone is on board the  _Allegiance._ "

"Yes, sir." The Lieutenant saluted, but not before eyeing the countdown warily, and then disappearing with a manic haste to his step.

General Hux smiled at the numbers counting down and then leisurely made his way to where his shuttle was parked and waiting for him. It was only a matter of time before the bastard Kylo Ren was dead and the First Order would be his to command.

Other than a battle of dark sided wills battling on the other side of the base, all was quiet and the countdown to the destruction of the base was just the calm before the storm.

TBC...


	8. One of These Days

**Chapter 8**

**One of These Days**

 

**There was** an uncomfortable ringing in his ear. Ren couldn’t make sense of why it was stinging so much. His mind couldn’t focus on anything and the whole world around him swam. He tried to reach a hand towards his face but his movements were stunted by a sudden weakness and pain in his limbs.

“Ben.”

Ren tried roll over but whatever he was lying on hurt and burned. 

“Ben, you have to get up.”

That voice. Why was that voice here. He was dead.

“Ben! You have to get up!” 

Ren finally managed to open his eyes and saw the glowing blue form of Luke Skywalker standing above him. “What… you’re dead.” 

There was a soft kindness in Luke’s eyes. “The Cosmic Force is a beautiful thing, Ben. But I have no time to explain. You have to get up. You have to get out of here. The First Order is going to be looking for your body, they’ll kill you if they find you alive. Your General Hux wants you dead!”

Ren groaned with pain and sat up. This was the second time in less than a few weeks that he had awoken in a room on fire. The room around him was no more. Instead it was rubble and fire. The sky outside shone in, blotted out by dark black smoke as the rubble burned. Lord Eska lay in a heap near him. The cauterized lightsaber wound across his throat the only clear sign that he was dead. 

He looked back up at Luke but he was gone. He pulled himself to his feet and grabbed his lightsaber, neatly attaching it to his belt. Ren wandered down the broken halls in a fog, he probably had a concussion and his mind was having difficulty keeping it together. 

He found himself at the entrance to what had once been his rooms. Inside he grabbed the black diamond off the floor where it had fallen after the explosion and began to disrobe. He knew that he would be too visible in the dark blacks of his normal uniform, easy to see, recognizable, and if Luke had been right, which he more than likely was, Hux was going to be out looking for him when they found the room bereft of his corpse. 

In simple black pants and a dark tunic Ren managed to salvage a few items, a water canteen, and a satchel. He would have to do something about the identifying scar and hair framing his face but it would have to wait. He could feel that he was running out of time. 

Concussion making his head throb Ren headed out into the city and tried to disappear. He found a small shop selling different kinds of outerwear and donned a hat that would hide his hair and face. He had no credits with him, in the First Order he had never needed any, so he’d had to mind trick the poor salesman into thinking he’d been prepaid. On his way out he also grabbed a long tan jacket. It wasn’t too cold on the planet but a jacket would do much to hide the unusual blacks he was wearing. Most of the other people milling through the city were in a variety of colors, but none of them solid black. 

He honestly didn’t know what he was supposed to be doing. Up until recently he hadn’t really thought about what HE wanted. Only want Snoke had wanted, and he had tried to be everything that Snoke had wanted, but it had never been enough. But those thoughts would have to come later, right now his focus would have to be on survival. He reached out for the Force bond between him and Rey but it was still conspicuously quiet. They had told each other the the other wasn’t alone, and right now he felt more alone than ever. Ren walked out into the street again this time feeling like he was invisible, in more ways than one.  And really, at this moment, all he wanted was a quiet moment to think. But in his mind’s eye all he saw was Rey. 

Ren stopped at the large open door that led into the spaceport. A bright screen flashed open bounties he stared at it as it rotated through about a dozen faces. His own face popped up and he felt his rage boil over.

**“BOUNTY ALERT! BOUNTY ALERT! KYLO REN. WANTED FOR THE MURDER OF SUPREME LEADER SNOKE, SEDITION, ASSISTING REBELLION TERRORISTS, AND FELONY CRIMES AGAINST THE FIRST ORDER. DEAD OR ALIVE! 5,000,000 CREDITS REWARD.”**

The high price on his head would have the entire galaxy flocking to find him. His force powers would only get him so far. He had no allies, no resources. And then a thought occurred to him. Vic Elan lived a fairly cushy existence on Vesta, a planet on the edge of the Outer Rim not far from the expanse of the Unknown regions. Whatever work she had been doing for Snoke and Eska was enough to give her endless access to resources. 

The fact that Vic Elan had run at the first sign of trouble was enough to fill him with rage, so much for loyalty. He would visit his fellow trainee and on the way he would have to commandeer a ship, because on the way to Vesta it might be a good idea to stop by the one place that Snoke had always forbade him from visiting. And maybe he would get the answers to his path into the future.

 

**Rey stared** out into streaking lights of hyperspace. She had long zoned out and wasn’t reading anymore, instead she was lost in thought. She glanced at the timer on the dash. They were less than an hour away from Bespin and she hoped that in that time she could get some sense of what the city could offer her to fix her lightsaber. She kind of wished the force bond would open up so she could talk to Ben. He was the only other person she knew who had built a lightsaber and maybe he could shed some light on her failures. 

But the bond had been quiet, and other than the few strange ripples in the force she hadn’t seen his face or heard his voice in a very long time. It made her anxious and she hated being anxious. Everytime the feeling came over her on Jakku she had trained, or did something to work the energy out. Sometimes she even came up with a solution to whatever was making her anxious. 

She didn’t really want to do any training in the Falcon at the moment, she was kind of afraid she might break something. Chewbacca had been working hard to get the ship back in working order and she didn’t want to incur any of the wookie’s wrath by undoing anything. 

Every day she felt her connection to the Force deepening, her understanding that she was not just a commander of the Force but a tool for the living and cosmic Force to bring balance grew more certain, but her place and role as this cosmic tool was still wavering. The First Order was a serious problem, but she felt in some vague way that the Force was directing her away from that, that her fight was with something much bigger than the First Order. Finn, Poe, Rose, Leia, they all had that part of the fight. 

The console beeped and and she knew it was time to exit hyperspace.

“Chewie, it’s almost time!” she yelled into the back. 

Chewie’s porg responded from somewhere in the Falcon and Rey just laughed. Chewie appeared moments later and took his spot in the co-pilot’s seat. They fell out of hyperspace and Rey sucked in a breath at the sight of Bespin. The gas giant was beautiful. She was excessively fond of the planets she had visited so far that were full of vibrant life in the form of trees, and grass, and flowers, and water, but the more she saw of the galaxy the more she appreciated the beauty in all its forms. Bespin, while not teeming with life like Takodana, D’Qar, or even the island of Ahch-to, was still a bright spot in the Force. Her awakened insights into the Force let her see just how a planet like this fit into the balance of everything.  And it was beautiful.

Chewie activated the transponder codes for the Falcon and they made their approach to Cloud City. 

Tug ships led them through the city and onto a landing platform where a single man in a long cape stood waiting. Chewie remarked that this man was Lando, one of his and Han’s longtime friends.  

Rey activated a few of the parking procedures for the Falcon and the ship computers took over to run routine maintenance and repair diagnostics. Chewie and his porg shoulder companion left the cockpit first as Rey retrieved the package that Leia had given her for Lando.  

In her satchel she checked one more time at the broken lightsaber there sent out a silent plea that the answers she sought were here. 

 

TBC...


	9. Dark Side of the Moon

**Chapter 9**

**Dark Side of the Moon**

 

 **It was** dream. No… it was a _nightmare._ Ben is walking down a hallway and he sees his parents sitting at a table just out of reach. They aren’t moving but there is something moving around them. Like dark black smoke creatures of indeterminate shape swirled around them. He stepped closer but the less distance between them and the black smoke around his parents seemed to increase. He stopped and the creatures were at bay, step away and they got smaller, closer they got bigger. He looked down at himself and saw that this black smoke wasn’t coming from nowhere, it was coming from him.

His parents turned to look at him. Suddenly they were standing close and their eyes were black pools. The smoke coming off his body was seeping into their eyes. “It’s your fault. You’ve killed us.”

“No. No I didn’t mean to!” The words coming out of his mouth sounded insincere even to himself. Ben tried to claw at the smoke surrounding him. “Make it go away, no! I didn’t. I didn’t.”

But he knows, he knows that he was the one who put a lightsaber through his own father. He knows he’s the one who brought darkness into his home.

“No.” Another voice says. Ben looks up and it’s Luke standing next to him, he is shimmering and blue, a white smoke surrounds him. “No, Ben. It’s not your fault. It was us who failed you first. It was us who failed to see that Snoke was hurting you.”

Luke reached a hand out and placed it on Ben’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, I know I said it before, but I’m truly sorry.”

Ben looked down at the spot where Luke touched him and saw the white smoke around him seeking purchase on his own body where the dark smoke prevaled. Suddenly the light exploded and he was in a whole new place. It’s the vision he saw, back when he and Rey had touched hands. She was standing by his side, holding his hand and staring out into some unseen view. He couldn’t really see their surroundings, but like all their Force bond moments he could only see her.

“What’s your favorite flower?” She’s asking him. That was new, that hadn’t been in the vision before. She looks up at him and grins. Suddenly, as suddenly as she appeared she’s gone again.

Instead of all white, he’s surrounded by all black. Kneeling on the ground in front of him is Lor San Tekka. “The First Order rose from the dark side. You did not.”

Ben… is he Ben? No, at this moment in time he is Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren swings up with his lightsaber and cuts the old man down. Something he didn’t see before was the soft, sad smile on Lor San Tekka’s face as he is killed. He was not afraid. In fact if Kylo Ren had any opinion on the matter, he would say the old man died with a glint of hope on his face.

“You’re a monster,” it’s Rey. Staring at him across the Force. He openly agrees with her, but on the inside he crumbles. He knows that not everything is as it seems. That she has only seen a part of him, a part that was not his construction, Kylo Ren, Snoke, and a few others that Snoke entrusted with it, had made Kylo Ren into the mythical monster that was supposed to harken back to the days of old, to the days when Darth Vader reigned terror on the galaxy. The terror that Kylo Ren was supposed to be. Snoke had told him that he was destined to follow the same path. A path that was chosen for him before he was even born.

But the light, the light called to him. And in this girl’s eyes he saw that light that called to him. In her ferocity he saw a vision of himself if he hadn’t walked the dark path, in the soft gaze when she stood so physically close to him in the elevator he saw a future that he wanted. One that wasn’t constructed from Snoke’s lies, from his parents fears, from his Uncle’s misgivings. In her eyes he saw trust, faith, even love. And that didn’t waver even when Snoke stood over them demanding that Kylo Ren kill Rey the scavenger, Rey, the woman who had been there in the corner of his mind, calling to him through the light even before he knew why or who she was.

He remembered the feeling, the exhilaration, the pure bliss of fighting with her side-by-side against Snoke’s guards, and it wasn’t the pure light of Luke, and it wasn’t the pure dark of Snoke. It was his darkness with an ounce of light, and her light with an ounce of dark. It was a beautiful balance, a poetry of light and shadow, a love that… that he, Kylo Ren, had snuffed out with foolish ambition. And one that Ben Solo would have to rekindle.  

Ben woke up from the dream. Wet tears crawled down his face and his heart ached. “Rey, where are you?”

There was no answer. There was never an answer. She was lost to him. He sighed and tried to get his bearings. He had fallen asleep in an uncomfortable position between two crates bound for the Pylo system. He had chosen this ship and destination because he was determined to seek out Vic Elan and at the very least give her a firm rebuke for betraying him. A noise over the intercom sounded once and he recognized it as the sound indicating that they were approaching their destination. The ship he had stowed away on was a civilian and small cargo transport and so far he’d been fairly lucky to be out of sight and in some cases mind of the people running the ship. It had been a little dangerous to fall asleep here but he had been so exhausted that he was willing to risk it. He looked down where he had his lightsaber clutched to his chest. The small black diamond ring he had tied to a simple string on the belt clasp on the end of the saber.

The dreams he’d been having since acquiring the ring were no coincidence. The ring emanated a form of the darkside that he wasn’t familiar with it. It wasn’t that angry wicked form of Snoke or Eska, but a from that was more pure, uncorrupted by intent.  And it was showing him things in his dreams. He felt no fear at what the dark side was showing him, they were his memories, his choices, and pivot points in his life where he had defined and been defined by the Force.

He felt that tug, at each of those moments shown to him, where the light side of the Force had led to a different direction, not always a better direction depending on the point of view, but a different one. He had always seen that call as a call to weakness, a part of him that he tried to purge at every turn by adhering to a strict interpretation of the dark side. He felt the ship around him rumble as it dropped out of hyperspace.

Pylo was Vic Elan’s home system and after she had begun working for Lord Eska she had been free to return as she pleased. Whatever work she had been doing for Lord Eska and Snoke had given her even more freedom than Snoke had given him.

Vic Elan had answers to other questions he’d had. And despite his loss of place in the galaxy he was determined to at least answer those.  

 

 **Rey woke** up from a relatively dreamless sleep with a start. Had someone called her name?

She sat up and looked around the small room that she had been given by Lando. But the room was empty and there was no one but herself. The sun was coming up over the ridge of clouds framed by a very large window casting a warm glow over everything.

Lando had been extremely cordial and welcoming of them, and when she had handed him the package from Leia he had grown silent with a look of melancholy on his face. He had thanked her and ushered her and Chewie to a small suite where they would stay for “as long as they needed.”

Rey didn’t know how long she needed to be here. Honestly she had thought and hoped that as soon as she landed at Cloud City some epiphany would overcome her and the answers would be made clear. But she had learned the lesson with Ben that not all things were easy, choices and fates were not always set on clear paths.

She had felt a ripple in the Force. An unease that set her on edge, and she wondered if it was coming from Ben. She reached out into the Force and tried to find him. As the days passed she had begun to learn how to find the sensations of other minds, other people who were small glimmers in the Force, but her range was still at a point where she couldn’t find Ben. He was either very far away or was somehow hiding his place in the galaxy and from the Force.

She sensed something going on outside the suite and crawled out of bed to don her day clothes. No easy answer had come, but Lando had offered to take them on a trip to see some of the mining operations on Bespin and on one if its smaller moons.

Rey stepped out into the main room of the suite to find Chewie and Lando talking to each other.

“Hey!” Lando said. “Good to see you awake. I came to tell you that I’ll be busy with some negotiations this morning, but that I wanted to have lunch with you both before heading out to see the mines. Will you be okay to have the run of the city by yourselves until I can get back to you?”

Rey nodded. “Yes, that’s fine. I wouldn’t mind exploring a bit.”

Chewie responded in agreement. He wanted to keep working on the Falcon.

“Excellent, meet me in the White Crystal dining room around midday then.” Lando grinned in a winning smile that would have won him the attention of many an interested party even at his age. Rey grinned back and waved as Lando swept out of the room, twirling his cape dashingly.

Chewbacca chortled and commented on unnecessary showmanship.  

Rey just laughed.

She grabbed her satchel and staff, which was unnecessary for wandering around the City, but she felt naked without them. She didn’t anticipate being attacked anywhere but it was better safe than sorry.

Rey walked Chewie to the dock where the Falcon was stationed and listened to him talk about what he was going to work on while she explored. Rey only half listened because some tickle in the Force was beginning to tug at her. When she found a moment to say “see you in a bit” to Chewie she began to wander. It might have seemed aimless to any casual observer but she felt the Force drawing her along a path through the City that didn’t feel without purpose.

Through the corridors, across archways that had nothing beyond them but clouds, and past the windows of shops and homes Rey wandered. She took in all the sights and smells, categorizing them alongside all the other amazing things she had seen since leaving Jakku.        

But the feeling around this place wasn’t just one of amazement, but of familiarity. She had seen the shape of these halls before, in the visions that had been triggered by touching the lightsaber in the shadowy recesses of Maz’s castle on Takodana.

This place meant something to the Force, and by proxy it meant something to her too. She stopped when she got to a cavernous room that roared as air was vacuumed through, probably as part of the lift mechanism for the city.

She caught flashes of something in the corner of her eye and turned only to see the world shift around her and she found herself in a vision. Two men, both she recognized from the stories and legends of her childhood, fought with lightsabers crossing the unstable support structures in the cavern.

Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker were not matched in power but Luke held his own against the might of Vader until he got the jump on him and Rey saw the moment Luke lost his hand and first lightsaber to the void below.

She saw Luke’s horror and anguish at finding out that Vader was his father. A look and feeling she had felt when confronted with the fact that her parents hadn’t left her behind for some important reason but because they had… hadn’t wanted her.

Rey heard and saw Vader make a proposition to his son, one that was frighteningly familiar. Rey considered that it must be a family trait to try and make offers of galaxy ruling.

“Join me and we can rule as father and son!”

Luke released himself to the vacuum, and in that moments she saw and felt him resign and give himself over to the Force and it led him along a path to his sister and safety.

The vision shifted and she saw Vader stare down the shaft where his son had fallen. There was sadness, disappointment, and anguish coming from the form of Vader and it made her sad. The dark side, the Sith, they had taken much from the Skywalker family and it had continued to do so, but in that same vein the Jedi with their dogmatic adherence to their ways had done the same, and driven the young Anakin Skywalker from his family and probably any hope that he could have turned out the be a productive member of the galaxy, Force powers or not.

She felt a familiar ripple in the Force and knew what was happened seconds before Ben Solo appeared at her side.

She looked over at him and he at her. “Rey,” he said softly and inquiringly almost like he didn’t quite believe that he was seeing her.

“Ben,” she said and couldn't’ keep the sadness out of her voice.

“Where are you?” he asked.

Rey bit her lip to keep herself from blurting it out, “I can’t tell you that.”

Ben nodded and for a moment she thought she saw a flicker of sadness cross his face.

They stood side by side, quietly for a few moments and Rey ached to talk to him, but before she could come up with something to say he began to talk.

“I’m sorry, I...” he let out a breath and appeared to be considering his words carefully.  “I’m lost. I don’t know who I’m supposed to be anymore.”

“Ben--” Rey began but he suddenly jerked his head back and she felt a shock of panic through the bond and then he flickered out of view. He was lost to her again and she reached out frantically trying to find him in the Force.

And this time she found him. The world around her shifted with a sickly feeling and suddenly she was standing at the base of a small transport ship. There were people of all kinds surrounding her--no, not just her-- her and a Ben. This had never happened before. Never had she seen his surroundings in one of these moments of the Force bond. Ben pulled out his lightsaber and glanced at her. She wasn’t sure if it would work but she positioned herself at his back, and prepared and hoped that she could be here not just as a specter of the Force bond but in the physical too. The dozens of people surrounding Ben were clearly bounty hunters, and they were all after him, some with murder in their eyes and postures.

 


	10. Don't Leave Me Now

 

**CHAPTER 10**

**Don’t Leave Me Now**

 

**They had** found him. One second he was seeing Rey the next he was seeing bounty hunters. Ben readied his lightsaber and reached out with the force. His connection to the Force allowed him to not only see the intent of his attackers but also the lines in the Force that he could effect. He could sense that there were more of these bounty hunters coming. He wouldn’t be able to hold his own against them for long, but he had no choice but to try. He would likely die or be severely injured here, and part of him would prefer death to letting Hux capture him.

“Ben!”

Ben looked up and started. Rey, it wasn’t the normal materialization or vision of her in the Force. No, this time she was actually manifesting. He wanted to tell her to be careful but her movement through the Force was nearly effortless. There was something in the Force that told him it wasn’t just her need that brought her here, but his own as well.  

Just as in Snoke’s throne room they barely needed to speak to know that it was time to fight back to back. He felt her press herself to his back and ready her staff. The staff would be useless against the blasters so he tried to indicate over the link some of his training with holding off or deflecting blasterbolts with the force. 

He sensed her acknowledge the wisp of skills being transferred to her and then as if someone had fired off a signal the fight began. Back and forth they fought in tandem, he blocking bolts and her parrying physical blows with her staff. Just as in Snoke’s throne room, they were matched and paired in a way that defied logic. The bounty hunters were coming out of nowhere dozens upon dozens were filling the spaceport. 

He tried to keep some part of him mind on Rey at all times but there were too many people, too much to focus on and everytime he felt her brush against him as their backs were turned to each other he felt a momentary surge of relief that she was still there. 

Everytime they jumped away from eachother to attack Ben felt a sense of something frightening. She had jumped into this fight so willingly. He could sense the fear from her, not for herself, but for him. She didn’t want him to die. If he’d had time to ponder the feelings coming off her he might have let himself feel warm. She felt for him, but it wasn’t a pitying feeling, but a compassionate one. 

He wanted to stop and mull over the feelings, but he couldn’t these bounty hunters kept coming and it was getting worse. It was like one of them had shot a beacon off because they were coming in droves. 

Suddenly there was a shout of warning and a woman with a shaved head jumped into the middle of a pack of bounty hunters and they scattered. She drew out her lightsabers, a set of daggers no bigger than her forearm, and made quick work of the handful around her.

“Vic!”  Ben shouted by way of greeting and accusation. 

“I realized you were here when you arrived. I wondered if I should let the bounty hunters get you but I figured that would be no fun!” she said as she backed up to circle the bounty hunters from the outside. “Haven’t you figured out that getting trapped in a circle like this is bad tactics?!” 

“Not now!” Ben shouted and sliced off three offending hands reaching out with blasters in one fell swoop.

Rey and Ben had been holding their own against the tide of hunters but with Vic Elan in the fight it began to shift in their favor. However, none of them noticed the Guavian hunter until it was too late. The Guavian somehow found an opening and got between them and just as Ben turned to cut him with his saber the Guavian jumped up with a jetpack with his arms wrapped around Rey. Rey screamed in anger and tried to hit the Guavian with her staff. Just before he touched down on the other end of the docking platform he managed to knock the staff out of her hands. 

Rey fought back with a physical prowess Ben knew she had acquired with many a fist fight on Jakku. He lost sight of her as another Guavian bounty hunter tore through the sky at him. He managed to hit the hunter out of the sky with his saber. He saw an opening with Rey. 

“REY!” he called out vocally and through the Force. Just as Rey had thrown him her saber back in Snoke’s throne room he threw his at her. But just as she gripped the saber in her hand and activated it the Guavian pressed his percussive cannon against Rey’s back and fired. Everything seemed to hit slow motion then. The saber blade went through the Guavian’s neck, right where its neuralnet processor would be. But it had been too late. Rey and the Guavian fell.

“Rey! No! Rey!!” He tried to go to her but more bounty hunters appeared and in a fit of rage Ben killed them all by manipulating the force to break bones, crack necks, and throw bodies out of the way. It wasn’t the last of them, but the remaining few hesitated to get any closer, the death of their compatriots suddenly stopping them in their tracks. 

Ben reached Rey’s side and fell to his knees at her side. The side was bleeding, the cannon bolt had gone through her side and left a vicious gaping red wound. 

Ben felt his throat catch and his hands shook as he tried to figure out what to do, he pressed his hands to her stomach and she cried out from the pressure. “Rey, hold on!” 

She was starting to fade, the Force was taking her back to wherever she had been before. “Rey! Rey, where are you! I’ll come for you! Rey!” 

Her eyes fluttered and she reached out and clutched at his hands. And just as she closed her eyes, she flicked away. It wasn’t until she was gone and Vic Elan said something that he realized that she had been holding his saber when she had disappeared. If he still had it he might have turned it on Vic Elan for her capricious loyalties. His body shuddered with dozens of untenable emotions, fear for Rey, rage at himself for letting her get hurt, rage at Vic Elan for having the audacity to WAIT to arrive. 

He reached out through the Force and asked it to show him Rey, to bring him to her as it had brought her to him. But the Force was aggravatingly quiet and he had to bolster his patience to keep from calling up the rebellion then and there to ask them to check on her, wherever she was. He was actually quite certain that his mother would know where she was. Instinctively he reached out for his mom before retreating. Not yet. 

“Kylo Ren, if you want to live you had best follow me. It won't be long before more credit hungry bounty hunters come for you, regardless of what you and your girlfriend have done to the others.”

Ben wanted to remark that Rey wasn’t his girlfriend but Vic Elan was already leaving him behind. He looked back at the spot where Rey had disappeared and stretched his hand awkwardly. The missing saber was already making him feel naked. He hadn’t been without it since he had built the thing. He hoped she was well, he would sacrifice the saber just to make sure she lived, but it was out of his power now. Ben picked up Rey’s staff and ran after Vic Elan.  

As he chased after Vic Elan he reached out with the Force and tried to find her, further and further into the deepest recesses of the Force. There was much out there, much in the Force that he had either ignored willingly or been driven away from because of its attachments to the light. He couldn’t care less now. It was all in his way to finding Rey.

Inexplicably his mind hit his mother’s and he mentally jolted back, cutting off the search. He felt her out there, seeking him again, but he hid himself. Of all things to be afraid of, he wasn’t ready to face her yet.  

  
  
  


**Rey felt** herself being drawn back and tried to grasp Ben’s hands in hope of staying but the Force pulled her away. She didn’t remember what happened next, but as Chewie explained it when she didn’t show up for lunch Chewie, recalling his lacking experience with Cloud City immediately asked for the city security to keep an eye out for her, called on Lando to investigate the security cameras, and didn’t rest for nearly the hour it took to find her. When the did she had nearly bled out and was holding an all too familiar saber. She had been groggy and incomprehensible but kept saying that she needed to return to Ben, that he was in danger, that she had to save him. He chastised her for letting herself get caught in that situation when she had awoken and was able to explain what happened.  

Chewie didn’t know much about the Force, but for most of his life he had seen the people around him use and abuse it. And it appeared that the Force had something to do with Rey’s predicament. He made his displeasure known to her often over the next few days.

After a short stint in a bacta tank and a few careful days of  bedrest Rey was released to walk. She hadn’t let the crossguard lightsaber out of her grasp the whole time. Just in case the Force brought her back to Ben she wanted to be able to give it back to him. Tied to the belt clip on the saber was a black ring, one she had recognized that had been on Snoke’s finger. In the Bacta tank and during her days of bedrest she dreamed. She dreamed of the loneliness of growing up on Jakku, her hopes and fears that her parents would return for her. He dreams of being found, of being told she had been left for her safety, that they had returned now that she was strong and capable. But all that was dashed as the dreams filled with memories of being a small child, of seeing her parents, uncaring, pushing her aside like leftover worthless junk. She knew she cried in her sleep because she woke with dried, crusty tears sealing her eyelashes closed. 

The last night she had dreams of her past she found herself walking down a hallway towards a lightsource. As she walked she turned to the right and saw Ben walking with her. In his hands he held the crossguard lightsaber but instead of a red hue the saber sported a pure white hue. He glanced at her and smiled as they continued to walk, she felt her hands grip something and when she faced forwards again she saw that she was carrying her double sided lightsaber. But it was a color that she never expected. 

The color of her saber drew her in and she was falling deeper and deeper into a feeling, a memory, a vision of the future. There was something out there, darker even than the parts of the force she had seen that were almost black as night. At the center of it all was the diamond, in the dream she saw its creation. It wasn’t just any diamond, the tall alien creatures, beautiful in their grace, took the best parts of a million kyber crystals and found a way to meld them all together. But their beauty hid a darkness, they were clearly the same species as Snoke, but they had long flowing hair, robes of gold and silver. They almost worshiped the crystal as a god, or a godhead to the living and cosmic Forces. Highly powerful, it acted as a conduit for the Force for anyone that would wield it.    

Rey woke from the dream with a start and grappled with the sheets to find where she had placed Ben’s saber. The little black diamond on the end was speaking to her. It was darkness, but it wasn’t the darkness of evil, it was the darkness of space, the power and the brilliance of the expansive dark matter that made up everything that human eyes couldn’t see. It was a darkness that let in the light, that embraced it as a lovers embraced, was part of it as one part of a whole. 

In a fevered state she crawled out of the bed and nearly stepped on Chewie’s foot, he grumbled startled and asked if everything was well.

“It is, I know what to do!” she cried and stumbled out of the room into the common area where she had stashed the frame of the double lightsaber.  

She was the light to its darkness.

The two shards of the kyber crystal ached as she touched them and she reached into the force to speak to them with hushed whispers and gentle touches as she worked the two halves and the black diamond into the center of the blade. 

It was the darkness to her light. 

She felt connected to something, something so much larger than herself. The Force wasn’t just her tool right now, instead she was its tool. She was doing its work and through it she felt the lines of the Force working all around her and Chewie and Cloud City and beyond. She felt through the expanse of the galaxy the minds of the people she had touched, Leia, Finn, Poe, Rose… and finally Ben. 

She clipped a few more parts into place and then stood in the center of the room. Chewie watched her from the doorway of her bedroom  

She held the double sided saber out, and pressed the button to activate it. Two brilliant black blades hummed from either end and she felt a sense of completion. But only a part was complete. She looked down at Ben’s saber sitting on the floor where she had worked. Ben needed his saber, and he needed to make it whole again. 


End file.
